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Basic Research in Prostate Cancer, Kidney Cancer, Urinary Incontinence, Pediatric
Urology and Erectile Dysfunction
The March-April 2013 issue of the International Braz J Urol presents original contributions with a lot of basic research papers in different fields. The papers come from many different countries such as Brazil, USA, China, Turkey, Jordan, Iran and Italy, Israel, Germany, Canada and Korea and as usual the editor´s comment high-lights some papers.
Doctor da Silva and collegues, Department of Uro-oncology and Center of On-cologic Evidences, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, UNICAMP, Campinas, Brazil performed on page 155 an interesting study Systematic review of literature and me-ta-analysis to evaluate the results of magnetic resonance image 1.5T with endorectal coil in the diagnosis and evaluation of extra-prostatic extension and involvement of seminal vesicles of prostate cancer, compared to the histopathological results of the radical prostatectomy specimen.
Doctor Cabral and collegues from the Ipiranga Hospital and Brazilian In-stitute of Cancer Control, Sao Paulo, Brazil performed on page 173 an interest-ing study about testosterone as a predictor of aggressive disease in subjects with clinically localized PCa in 164 patients submitted to radical prostatectomy. This study indicates that testosterone may be a useful predictive tool once pathological extraprostatic extension was somewhat signaled by lower TT levels preoperatively. However, it does not consolidate a clear association between aggressive tumor biol-ogy and hypogonadism.
Doctor Wang and collegues from Changhai Hospital in China performed on page 189 a interesting basic research about the pahologic sizes of renal tumors. They concluded that the renal tumor size was overestimated by radiography as compared with pa- thology. The difference was just 0.22 cm with little clinical sig-nificance, suggesting that CT provides an accurate method to estimate renal tumor size preoperatively.
Doctor Faddegon and collegues Department of Urology, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA, performed on page 195 an interest-ing study about Horseshoe kidney is an uncommon renal anomaly often associated with ureteropelvic junction (UPJ) obstruction. Advanced minimally invasive surgical (MIS) reconstructive techniques including laparoscopic and robotic surgery are now
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being utilized in this population. However, fewer than 30 cases of MIS UPJ recon-struction in horseshoe kidneys have been reported. We herein report our experience with these techniques in the largest series to date.
Doctor Camara-Lopes and collegues from University of Sao Paulo Medical School, Sao Paulo, Brazil, performed on page 222 a interesting study about the Pros-tatic artery embolization (PAE) for the treatment of patients with symptomatic be-nign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). This is the first description in BPH patients treated by PAE, a new procedure that is being used increasingly as a therapeutic interven-tion. The recognition of the changes caused by this new modality of treatment has become a very important differential in a chronic granulomatous reaction of the prostate tissue.
Doctor Tostes and collegues from Urogenital Research Unit - State Univer-stiy from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, performed on page 240 a interesting basic re-search about the incidence and structure of testicular appendices (TAs) in patients with cryptorchidism, comparing their incidence with epididymal anomalies (EA) and patency of the vaginal process (PVP) and analyzes the structure of TAs in 55 patients with cryptorchidism. The authors shows that there was no difference in the incidence of testicular appendices in relation to the testicular position in the patients with cryptorchidism. There also was no increased incidence of anatomical anomalies associated with the testes containing appendices. The testicular appen-dices showed a significant structural alteration in the patients with cryptorchidism: although the epithelium was not changed, the testicular appendices of the patients with cryptorchidism had a larger quantity of elastic fibers and smaller quantity of smooth muscle cells and predominance of type III collagen, remodeling in patients with cryptorchidism.
Doctor Shynlova and Collegues from the University of Toronto, Canada, per-formed on page 257 a interesting basic research analyze the expression of genes involved in extracellular matrix (ECM) biogenesis and remodeling in vaginal tissue of women clinically normal pelvic floor support according to the phase of menstrual cycle and postmenopausal women with and without pelvic organ prolapse (POP) and concluded that ovarian cycle and age-related changes influence the expression of genes encoding proteins responsible for ECM metabolism in human vagina.
Moreover, POP is associated with alteration in vaginal ECM components after menopause.
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hydrochloride (L-NAME), an nitric oxide sinthase (NOS) inhibitor, in rats. They ob-served a systemic reduction of nitric oxide causes detrusor overactivity and acute in- fusion of sildenafil reduces the number of micturition cycles in chronic NO-deficient rats.
Associated Editor Internacional Braz J Urol
